National Post Editorial Board: Jason Kenney is maintaining the value of citizenship

Jason Kenney is maintaining the value of citizenship

We have never hesitated to express our approval for the smart reforms Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney has instituted since taking over his portfolio. And we are glad to see his efforts paying off.

On Monday, Mr. Kenney announced that some 3,100 people will lose their Canadian citizenship after investigations revealed that they had never qualified for it in the first place. In many of these instances, the individuals had acquired permanent residency status in Canada, but failed to live in Canada for the required amount of time before applying for citizenship. The investigation further discovered that these efforts to pretend to live in Canada were being actively aided and abetted by some immigration “consultants” living in Canada. These individuals face charges, as they should.

Mr. Kenney has spoken with the National Post editorial board on several occasions in recent years. He has always stressed that the old laws and regulations were overly complex and far too lax. The bar for Canadian citizenship has never been set particularly high — an applicant must be free of a criminal record, have a workable knowledge of Canada, be able to communicate in one of our official languages and have lived for at least three of the last four years in the country after becoming a permanent resident.

That’s not a lot to ask, given all the advantages Canadian citizenship entails — indeed, it is those very advantages that makes our citizenship so attractive, even to those who have not earned it. But citizenship is a two-way street, conferring obligations as well as privileges. The most fundamental of those obligations is to be truthful and law-abiding when seeking to become Canadian. Those who cannot meet even that standard do not deserve a Canadian passport.

Canada needs immigrants. We are the successful and prosperous land we are today because of the millions of people who have chosen to come from afar and make Canada their home. But if our citizenship is to have meaning, its rules must be enforced. Mr. Kenney is right to be doing exactly that.